Poms level series in defiant fashion

Scyld Berry

MUMBAI: England won the second Test against India in considerable style - by 10 wickets - to level the four-Test series on Monday.

Alastair Cook and Nick Compton rammed home the message that England are capable of bettering India on their home turf, knocking off the 57 runs they needed.

While Cook took his match aggregate to 140, Compton played an innings that will do him the world of good and guarantees him a lengthy run as England's new opening batsman.

Compton, having played one drive against India's spinners in the series to date, sailed down the pitch to drive a four, then a six, and finished with 30 from only 28 balls.

Advertisement

England's victory was their second in succession in Mumbai. But whereas their last win in 2006 owed much to India's batsmen slogging the ball in the air on the last day instead of playing for a draw, this was a mighty accomplishment - even if it owed almost everything to Cook and Kevin Pietersen, with some assistance from Compton, of their batsmen; and to Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann, who took every Indian wicket except the first.

In rounding up India's last three wickets, Panesar took one more and Swann two. Swann had Harbhajan Singh gloving an off-break to slip, and Gambhir leg-before pushing half-forward, while Panesar tempted Zaheer Khan into a slog to leg.

Both of England's spinners were helped by having much better ground-fielders than India's had. The home side must have given away 20 to 30 runs through the incompetent diving of aged outfielders around the boundary, a significant number in a match on a minefield.

Swann, cannier and more accurate than any other spinner in the game, finished with eight wickets for 113, and 206 wickets in his Test career. He also contributed materially by turning into Panesar's gully fielder, in place of James Anderson, contributing two sharp low catches.

Panesar finished with 11 wickets for 210 - better and worse figures than Swann - and 153 Test wickets. Panesar came on much earlier than Swann and made the vital early breakthroughs, and paid a price for bowling at India's best batsmen; Swann followed on and gradually widened the wounds until they were fatal. A perfect combination.

But there could only be one man of the match. Local pundits have struggled to think of any innings by any visiting batsman from any country to match Pietersen's 186. Cook, Panesar and Swann were superb, but Pietersen's batting was in a league of its own. And even he admitted, once England had won, that it was the best knock he had ever played.